Le Petit Soldat

Geneva during the Algerian War. Bruno Forestier, a deserter from the French army, is drawn into the circle of a French terrorist organisation called La Main Rouge. He is told to assassinate a radio host sympathetic to the FLN and refuses. Meanwhile he falls for Véronica Dreyer, who is secretly working for the FLN. Jean-Luc Godard directed. It is Anna Karina's first film with him; Michel Subor leads. Godard made it immediately after Breathless to be taken seriously as a filmmaker. He gave the reason himself: the New Wave is criticised for showing people only in bed; I'm going to show some who are in politics and don't have time to go to bed. The theme of brainwashing came from Arthur Koestler. It was shot in 1960 and could not be shown until 1963; the French government banned it over the torture scenes. Its most quoted line is here too: photography is truth and the cinema is truth 24 times a second. Godard spent later films taking that idea apart himself. Roger Ebert gave it four stars retrospectively. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 81 percent. Who it is for: viewers interested in Godard and political cinema. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a side. The film rescues neither the French state nor the FLN, and that refusal upset everyone on release.